I resented the fact that, the moment I realized there was one of those “spherical style” CCTV cameras (officially, they’re called “dome CCTV camera fixtures”) directly in my eyeline, I had already started to yawn. Which is, honestly, one of the most unflattering facial “poses” a human can make. So to be “caught” on camera, as if all of life were just one big reality show no matter who you were (and how “anonymous” you wanted to remain), well, that was nothing short of horrific for me. Yes, I’m aware that there’s probably hundreds of hours’ worth of footage of me out there in the CCTV ether just waiting to be pulled up and referenced should I ever decide to commit a crime. Which, who knows, maybe I will. I’m still young. I’ve got plenty of time to be disillusioned enough by my finances to the point where I might consider doing something “stupid.” Even though it’s already quite stupid of all of us to keep participating with such mostly bovine resignation to “the way it is.”

Like how I’m just supposed to “accept” that the CCTV camera outside of the BNP Paribas now has footage of me yawning—looking gross, too uncurated and way too candid. I don’t even understand how it’s allowed to set up cameras like that without getting some kind of consent form signed by a majority of the public that lives within a certain radius of the camera. Granted, I wasn’t such a resident of this area, but merely a visitor. However, as a visitor, I have naïve faith that the area residents would vote, categorically, against such violating displays of surveillance.

Then again, what am I saying? The type of people who can afford to live around these here parts would probably petition for the installation of such cameras if they didn’t appear on their own, unasked. Such was the sociopathic, “us v. them” way of the rich. You know, the more I think about it, the more I do blame the rich for the pervasiveness of cameras on every street corner. Especially the “tony” street corners. Well, I, Romy Malloy, am making a solemn vow—right here, right now—that if I ever manage to achieve the status of “being wealthy,” I will not be an asshole. I swear. “To God.” Or whatever the fuck you wanna call your version of a higher power.

In the spirit of Claire Standish of The Breakfast Club saying, “Not me. Ever” about becoming like her parents, that’s how I feel about becoming an asshole if I ever manage to get any fucking money. Of a truly significant amount, I mean. Not that I have high hopes for that—but hey, they say capitalism is able/supposed to make it so that anyone can get rich (or die trying). Even a nobody born into a lower middle-class background like me. And you know what else? If I ever do get money, get paid, I’m going to ensure I live in an area that has absolutely no security cameras. None. Everyone can feel free to yawn as much as they want on the street without fearing that it might somehow be “memorexed.” To use a genericization that only people who can currently afford to live in this neighborhood might vaguely remember.

Anyway, obviously the reason I was yawning stemmed not from “a lack of oxygen to my brain,” but because I was fucking tired after spending most of the morning and early afternoon cleaning some rich person’s apartment in this very neighborhood. It was my first gig there, and the first one I’d ever finagled in this quartier. Where even the bank looked like it was some kind of “cathedral.” And to these people, it was. Their church, their religion, their god. Which was ironic because they had all the money they needed—this being precisely why they shouldn’t be or feel so ruled by it. Not the way that I, or someone else in my “class,” genuinely was. Made to bow down to it and be its bitch all day, every day. This included the fact that “our kind” couldn’t even get in a private yawn before moseying on over to their next cleaning gig. No, apparently, we were too lowly even for that. After all, privacy is the luxury of the rich. Increasingly so.

To that point, I guess the “reason” for being susceptible to being recorded, at any given moment, while outside of your “own home” (even if that home is a hovel), is because the rich—the people truly in control (puppeteering the government, etc.)—would like to “gently” remind you that you have no ownership over anything once you’re “out in the open.” Least of all your own image and what gets done with it.

Goddamn, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it. As it does that somebody, somewhere can “rewind the tape,” so to speak, and see me looking grotesque and vulnerable anytime they want. A tired proletariat just trying to make enough to barely survive. Not even full-on survive, mind you. All while paying the additional toll of being unwittingly (for the most part—because it’s shocking how much we fail to see the many cameras around us all the time) documented. Probably so whoever “oversees” the footage can pass it off to various rich fucks for their viewing “pleasure.” Like, ha, ha, look at these broke asses who can’t afford to stay out of public places where a camera can always catch them, monitor them. What a bunch of fucking pathetic losers adhering to our system so complacently.

Whereas the rich prefer to voluntarily document their nefarious activities (as opposed to the innocent, typically mundane activities of the prole on the street) and then put them under “lock and key”—this usually failing miserably, as the Epstein files have proven. This form of private recording used as a means to get them all hot and bothered about how they can engage in whatever debauchery they want and record it. And even if the footage and/or photos are found by the “wrong person,” they still won’t face any consequences.

As I passed by yet another CCTV camera (this one a more standard “bullet installation”) outside of something as fucking innocuous as a pet store, I reflexively flipped it off. Sure, it was a puerile reaction to my continued rage over that stolen yawn, but at least I was aware, from the beginning, of the maneuver being documented while I was doing it. At least there was a modicum of agency involved, for fuck’s sake. Or so I kept telling myself as I went about cleaning the next apartment.